The Francis Crick Medal and Lecture is a prize lecture of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

established in 2003 with an endowment from Sydney Brenner, the late Francis Crick's close friend and former colleague. It is delivered annually in

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

, particularly the areas which

Francis Crick Francis Harry Compton Crick (8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004) was an English molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist. He, James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins played crucial roles in deciphering the helical struc ...

worked (

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...

molecular biology Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and physi ...

and neurobiology), and also to theoretical work. The medal is also intended for young scientists, i.e. under 40, or at career stage corresponding to being under 40 should their career have been interrupted.

List of lectures

Laureates include: * 2022 Tiago Branco ''for making fundamental advances in the molecular, cellular and circuit bases of neuronal computation and for successfully linking these to animal decision behaviour'' * 2021

Serena Nik-Zainal Serena Nik-Zainal is a British-Malaysian clinician who is a consultant in clinical genetics and Cancer Research UK advanced clinician scientist at the University of Cambridge. She makes use of genomics for clinical applications. She was awarded t ...

''for enormous contributions to understanding the aetiology of cancers by her analyses of mutation signatures in cancer genomes, which is now being applied to cancer therapy'' * 2020 Marta Zlatic ''for discovering how neural circuits generate behaviour by developing and disseminating definitive techniques, and by discovering fundamental principles governing circuit development and function'' * 2019 Gregory Jefferis ''for his fundamental discoveries concerning the development and functional logic of sensory information processing'' * 2018 Miratul Muqit ''in recognition of his research on cell signalling linked to neurodegeneration in Parkinson’s disease'' * 2017 ''for transforming our understanding of meiotic recombination and of human population history.'' * 2016 Madan Babu Mohan ''for his major and widespread contributions to

computational biology Computational biology refers to the use of data analysis, mathematical modeling and computational simulations to understand biological systems and relationships. An intersection of computer science, biology, and big data, the field also has fo ...

'' * 2015

Rob Klose Rob Klose (born December 28, 1977) is a Canadian researcher and Professor of Genetics at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford. His research investigates how chromatin-based and epigenetic mechanisms contribute to the ways in which ...

''for his research on how chromatin-based and epigenetic processes contribute to gene regulation'' * 2014

Duncan Odom Duncan Odom is a research group leader at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg, and the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute (CRUK CI) at the University of Cambridge. Previously he was as an associate faculty member at the Wel ...

''for his pioneering work in the field of comparative functional genomics'' * 2013

Matthew Hurles Matthew Edward Hurles is head of human genetics at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and an honorary professor of Human Genetics and Genomics at the University of Cambridge. Education Hurles was educated at the University of Oxford where he was aw ...

on ''Mutations: great and small'' * 2012

Sarah Teichmann Sarah Amalia Teichmann (born 1975) is a German scientist who is head of cellular genetics at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and a visiting research group leader at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI). She serves as director of resear ...

on ''Finding patterns in genes and proteins: decoding the logic of molecular interactions'' * 2011

Simon Boulton Simon Joseph Boulton is a British scientist who has made important contributions to the understanding of DNA repair and the treatment of cancer resulting from DNA damage. He currently occupies the position of Senior Scientist and group leader ...

on ''Repairing the code'' * 2010

Gilean McVean Gilean Alistair Tristram McVean (born February 1973) is a professor of statistical genetics at the University of Oxford, fellow of Linacre College, Oxford and co-founder and director of Genomics plc. He also co-chaired the 1000 Genomes Projec ...

on Our genomes, our history'' * 2009 on ''Reprogramming the code of life'' * 2008

Simon Fisher Simon E. Fisher (born 1970) is a British geneticist and neuroscientist who has pioneered research into the genetic basis of human speech and language. He is a director of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and Professor of language a ...

on ''A molecular window into speech and language'' * 2007

Geraint Rees Geraint Ellis Rees is Vice- Provost of research, innovation & global engagement at University College London (UCL). Previously he served as Dean of the UCL Faculty of Life Sciences, UCL Pro-Provost (Academic Planning), Pro-Vice-Provost (AI) and ...

on ''Decoding consciousness'' * 2006 Dario Alessi on ''Deciphering disease'' * 2005

Daniel Wolpert Daniel Mark Wolpert FRS FMedSci (born 8 September 1963) is a British medical doctor, neuroscientist and engineer, who has made important contributions in computational biology. He was Professor of Engineering at the University of Cambridge ...

on ''The puppet master: how the brain controls the body'' * 2004

Julie Ahringer Julie Ann Ahringer is an American/British Professor of Genetics and Genomics, Director of the Gurdon Institute and a member of the Department of Genetics at the University of Cambridge. She leads a research lab investigating the control of g ...

on ''Genes, worms and the new genetics'' * 2003 Ewan Birney on ''Being human: what our genome tells us''

References

{{RoySoc Annual events in the United Kingdom 2003 establishments in the United Kingdom Biology education in the United Kingdom Genetics awards Genetics in the United Kingdom Recurring events established in 2003 Royal Society lecture series

List of lectures

See also

References